Psyche
by Aidan MacAffee
Summary: **UPDATED** The classic myth of Eros (Cupid) and Psyche...except it takes place in modern-day USA...
1. Prologue : My Name

A/N: Hi guys! I've always loved the myth of Eros (Cupid) and Psyche...but I wanted to put my own twist on it...so here it is! =o) Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeasereview!!! Feedback is appreciated more than you know!  
  
  
  
  
Psyche  
  
  
By Aidan MacAffee  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Prologue ~ My Name  
  
  
Carissa Psyche--only my mother could conjure up a name like that. At least I convinced her at a young age to accept "Carrie" as my name, but all my life, it was there. My name.  
  
Now, most people are proud of their names, but those are regular names, like Mary, Sarah, Elisabeth, Elizabeth, and so on. But Carissa Psyche? I don't think so. Imagine what it was like for me as a kindergartener, when they call out your full name in class. I can still hear my teacher say, "kuh-RIS-sa PSI-chee?"  
  
Ignoring the snickers, I would stand and firmly say, "SI-key, and my name's Carrie."  
  
The teacher then nodded her head, going back through the roll. At least I was blessed with a last name in the middle of the alphabet. Yes, that would be me. Carissa Psyche Monroe. I always thought that Carissa sounded like a prissy, snobbish name, while Psyche was just...weird. I've never met anyone else in the world who's even heard of the name "Psyche." Someone once told me that he thought it was from a story of some type, but he wasn't sure. Oh, well.   
  
Mother meant well, I suppose. She's always been interested and into name backgrounds and meanings. She's told me her stories many times of how she searched long and hard--and boy, do I believe it--for the names of my sisters and myself. They came out slightly better, however. Clara Eve Monroe and Erin Ann Monroe.   
  
All of our names were chosen for their meaning, of course. Clara's meant "Bright and (full of) Life." Erin's meant "Peaceful and Gracious." Mine was "Loving the soul."   
  
I suppose, as the youngest, that I was expected to "love the soul," as Mother would put it. I don't believe that any of us actually lived up to the definition of her name. Clara was pretty lazy, lying around all day and all. Erin was always very impatient and a little selfish, to be honest. And me, well, I was always a little on the impulsive side, but Mother would say that I was closest to the meaning of my name.  
  
I never thought this on my own, but I suppose that she and others saw it in me, so I would nod and continue my life. Not many people knew the meaning of my name, especially since it was especially unique, as Mother would call it, but I always called it weird. I did have a teacher once, in tenth grade, who gave our class a list of superlatives, based on the definitions of our names and how similar or different we were to them. I don't know how she did them all, but I kept the paper, for it was the first time that someone, other than my mother, had commented that my name was not only pretty, as everyone always said, but that it had a beautiful meaning.   
  
My teacher--her name was Miss, no, Mrs. Keel--wrote this about me, Carissa Psyche Monroe:  
  
  
Carissa Psyche ~ "Loving the soul"  
  
  
Carrie, you have a beautiful name, and you live up to it wonderfully. You truly do love the soul, for you love people for who they are, in their hearts, not who they make themselves to be. Dearest Carrie, you have been a true blessing to my class this year, thank you so much! Don't stop being yourself!  
  
  
This note honestly changed my life, because now there was someone--other than my mother, who didn't really count--who not only accepted, but loved that curse in my life that was always breathing down my neck: my name.  
  
At least, according to others, I lived up to it. With one like mine, you might as well, because it's not like you can just change it. Actually, I suppose that you could, but Mother takes such pride in our names that there was no way that I could get away with changing it. Mother still hasn't forgiven herself for being completely wrong with my sisters' names, but the fact that "the third time was the charm," as she said way too often, consoled her slightly.  
  
By now, I've learned to live with it. Everyone in the world has something that plagues them, that they are dying to change. A few of them are lucky enough to be able to change their affliction. Not me. I'm one of those who have to just accept, and then go on with life.  
  
I was spared, however, since my name at least resembled a normal one. When I finally got over my first few elementary school years, my name wasn't used as often anymore, so I was able to slide into being Carrie, my escape from Carissa Psyche. It was very nice, I will admit. Around third or fourth grade, I began to be treated differently. Many of my little classmates, although I was just as little, began to hold me up in...well, I guess you could say awe. I'm not bragging or anything, in fact, just the opposite, since as a little third grader--that's when it was--I was frightened easily by anything out of normal.   
  
You see, my father is the wealthiest and most famous man in the area, so it was always a well-known fact that I was "Bill Monroe's kid." Yeah, me. I suppose that my classmates had overheard their parents talking or something, but it got kinda scary, yet almost...neat? I don't know. All I do know is that, from third grade on, it was as if I had a little crowd of "admirers" as my mother called them. I tended to think more along the lines of "obsessive."   
  
Nevertheless, my entire life, there they were. I worried about it, and the teachers would always ask me if something was wrong, but I would just smile and shake my head. Throughout middle and high school, they were still there, but not one of them dared to talk to me. It got very frightening after a while, but even when I begged, they would not go away. It got even worse one day after we had been studying Greek myths in literature class one day. Someone caught on that Aphrodite was the goddess of love and beauty and so on, so they adapted it for me the next day. "The New Aphrodite," they said. As for me, I wanted to throw up. Me? Why? Most of all, I was still wondering what the heck was wrong with these people. I was suffering from a severe lack of privacy here! To make matters even worse, other people in our town and around it took notice. As a high school student, being interviewed by a news team asking why you're being called a goddess is not exactly what I expected.  
  
Daddy got fed up with it all after a while. He called the news stations and newspapers and intervened, with a little bribery. But he couldn't get rid of my little band of "faithful followers," as Clara and Erin called it.  
  
I talked to my sisters a lot during this, asking their opinions about what I should and shouldn't do, and to ease my unbelievable stress.   
  
"What should I do? They won't leave me alone, not even for an instant! Every day when I leave for school, there they are, camped out in front of the garage door! It takes five minutes of screaming for me to get them out of the way, just so I won't hit them! And then, all day long, they follow me. On the drive home, they follow me, silently staring and mumbling things softly. I can't go out for anything, because I'm afraid I'll be mobbed! What am I supposed to do?"  
  
Clara looked sideways at Erin, then spoke, in casual tones, as if I was a small child or something. "Carrie, I don't know why you're so upset about this! Just take it as a compliment. You really are beautiful, y'know, and they're just honoring you for it. But you know that and we know that, since it's always run through the family and all." She took this moment to glance in the mirror and readjust her auburn curls.   
  
Erin, the blond, added, "Yeah, she's right and all. Just put up with it until they grow up and stop gaping over Bill Monroe's kid like a supermodel. By the way, it's a very good career. It's honorable and noble and well-paying and you get to wear pretty stuff and..."  
  
I tuned her out at this point, rolling my eyes at her tendency to get off the subject and keep going until she couldn't remember what had started her off in the first place. Clara was still fixing her hair in the mirror, so I let myself fall back on Erin's bed, as we were in her room.  
  
Speaking of whom, she was still going on about supermodels all during my thoughts. That was where we three were quite different. Clara, the eldest, tended to be in front of her mirror most of the time, primping for one boyfriend to another. She juggled them a lot, with a record of five at one time, which is very good for the daughter of someone like our father. News like whom his daughters are going out with travels extremely fast around here. Right now she's in the middle of her third engagement, so hopefully this one will go through. I mean, at twenty-four she's hardly old, but Daddy's always begging her to settle down soon. Maybe she will, maybe she won't. No one can tell with Clara.  
  
Erin, on the other hand, was a little on the shallow side of the pool. She's just as beautiful as Clara, with her fair blond hair in contrast to Clara's shiny reddish-brown, and both inherited Mama's beauty. Erin, who's twenty-two, just graduated from college, although Daddy pulled quite a few strings to keep her in there. She's still living off of Mom and Dad, but I don't think that anyone expects anything else from her. Actually, she picked up one of Clara's exes from her latest cheating spree, dusted him off, and is now dating him. She's actually mentioned engagements, but we're not holding our breath...yet.  
  
"Carrie? Are you all right? Did you hear what I said?"  
  
"Hmmmm?"  
  
"I said, 'Don't you think that being a supermodel would be just wonderful?'"  
  
I looked up into Erin's wide green eyes and, biting my lip to keep from laughing, finally managed, "Yes. Yes, I think that it would be a good career."  
  
"Career?" Clara had finally emerged from what I called "Mirror World" and was now making her way into our conversation. Cigarette in hand, which I had given up telling her to quit years ago, she continued, "Really, Carrie, you sometimes use the biggest and fanciest words. And you're always studying and all! I don't see what all the fuss is about school and all." She inhaled again.  
  
"Oh, I don't know. I guess I kinda started it all to get away from 'The Mob,' y'know?"  
  
"Whatever. But you always question everything, Carrie. You never take a simple answer for anything, and you're always asking questions. You're so inquisitive."  
  
"Ooooooooo! Big word!" Erin exclaimed.  
  
Clara turned to her and blew out the smoke in her face, which wasn't far, as we were all lying on our stomachs in a circle on Erin's bed.  
  
"Ooooooooo! Yucky, yucky, yucky!" Erin screamed, jumping up and down on the bed in an effort to clear the smoke. Clara kept smoking, but Erin was furious now, which doesn't make a very pretty sight.  
  
"Get out of my room if you're gonna do that icky stuff! It's nasty, and now my room smells like smoke! Anyone who comes in here is gonna think I'm a chain smoker or somethin! Get out!"  
  
Clara took a long breath through the cigarette, then blew out slowly, looking up calmly at the incensed Erin. I wrinkled my nose at the smell, but stayed out of it. "Make me."  
  
Erin screamed and jumped on Clara, who retaliated back. But it was when they started exchanging words that I didn't think they knew, well, maybe Clara, but certainly not Erin, I decided to quietly sneak out. Not surprisingly, neither one noticed. They were both alive and breathing the next morning, so I guess it all ended well.  
  
But my problems and questions were still not solved, so I went back and forth on whether or not to talk to Mama or Daddy about it. In the end, I decided not to, since I didn't want them worried.   
  
After I left Erin's room, I walked down to the hammock near the pool and climbed into it, since it's my thinking place when I don't want to go up to my room, which I didn't want to.   
  
I felt weird and different. No matter how people treated me, I was still me inside, but the problem was, I didn't know who the "me" was! To most people at school and in town, I was Billy Monroe's kid, the pretty one with the funny name. But because of it, I was followed, but I had no friends. None of them have ever talked to me, and they don't act as if they will. I have no friends, and I'm eighteen and I haven't been on a date yet, all because they're all frightened to ask me. They treat me like I'm sacred, but I'm not. They gave be a nickname about being the incarnation of the goddess of love and beauty, but that's all junk. I want to be respected and loved, but I can't get that. Not from my classmates, not from anyone that lives in or around my hometown, not from my own sisters, and not even from my parents. I mean, they love me and all, but they're both so busy that there's no time for little Carrie.  
  
I started to cry, right there on the swaying hammock, but I felt awful, and completely alone. It didn't help to remember what someone had said to me earlier today, that had honestly terrified me.   
  
In remembrance, I felt myself twirling a gold-streaked, yet undoubtedly brownish, strand of hair, out of habit. It had happened this afternoon, I think, as I was going to my car. I was passing by two guys, and my name floated from their conversation to my ears, so I paused and listened.  
  
"You can't possibly believe that!" one of them said.  
  
"You bet big money that I do! You don't believe me, do you?" another replied.  
  
"No way!" the first shook his head.  
  
Another guy joined the pair. "What's all the yellin about?"  
  
"Jake here was talkin bout that girl everyone's followin around."  
  
"Carrie? Carrie Monroe?"  
  
"Yeah, her! Y'know how they call her the 'New Aphrodite?'"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Well, Jake was--"  
  
Jake interrupted, "I was sayin, y'know, what if Aphrodite, that Greek goddess was, I mean, really real? I mean, even in the smallest chance, couldn't it be possible?"  
  
"Yeah, right. Too bad she's an imaginary figure from Greek myths, as in 'stories that the Greeks made up to satisfy their longings for explanations of everything.'"  
  
"Well, I guess you're right, but still! Just think for a minute! What do you think the woman would do to our Carrie if she really did exist?"  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
"I mean, what would you do if you were known for bein beautiful or handsome or smart or funny or popular or whatever, and it had always been that way for ya, how would you feel if someone suddenly took your place, and honored them instead of you? What would you do?"  
  
"Man, I dunno. When ya put it that way...whoa! Let's hope for her sake that it's all make believe."  
  
"Yeah," Jake echoed.   
  
I jerked myself back into reality, but I tried to remember what I had done after that. I almost passed out in terror, which was ridiculous, but still...  
  
Strangely enough, I was still shaking. Me, always the practical one, was absolutely petrified at the idea that a character from an ancient Greek myth exists. What is my problem?  
  
Whatever it is, I can figure it out later. My head hurts from all this worry. I'll try to figure it out in the morning. But still, I never saw myself as being superstitious or anything like that. And I can't get my mind off the fact that I was so shaken, just by a conversation I heard in passing. The strangest thing is that I've always been proud in my ability to hold myself well, even in stress and unexpected jolts in life, but I had lost all control in this situation. It was almost as if...but it couldn't be, could it? I mean, everyone knows that this is just Greek religion, right?   
  
That slight chance that all I've been so sure in is in fact as slippery as I thought it was rock solid...that's what terrifies me. I remember shaking all the way until I fell asleep, still in the hammock. 


	2. One : A Task and a Mission

Hey guys! thanx so very much for reading and reviewing this! =o)  
  
To Erin: I know...the last section, with the guys talking is kind of awkward...if anyone has any ideas, feel FREE to share them with me! Last chapter is a prologue...the rest of the story will be 3rd-person pov...i was just in a wierd mood when i started writing this, and i would LOVE help!!! =o)  
  
Thanx! (personally, i think that it's MUCh better from now on!)  
  
  
  
  
  
Chapter One ~ A Task and a Mission  
  
  
  
If Carrie could only know how well founded her fears were, she would not have slept near as peacefully, for, miles away, a livid figure watched her now-sleeping form. Turning from the window, Aphrodite began to pace, back and forth, trying to form a plan of how to defeat this little chit of a girl who everyone thought was so beautiful.  
  
"She's disgracing my name! It's bad enough that no one worships me anymore, but now they're all calling her 'the New Aphrodite!' She doesn't deserve it! She's not even that pretty, much less gorgeous like me! They know nothing down there! Absolutely nothing!"  
  
Aphrodite continued to pace, madly conceiving a plan. "Who does that pathetic little brat think she is? She has no idea who she's dealing with! I'll make her pay so much for this that she'll wish with all her heart and soul that she was the ugliest creature that ever dared to crawl and creep along the earth!"  
  
Still brooding over this matter, Aphrodite suddenly thought of something. Maliciously smiling, she called out, "Eros!"  
  
She knew that it would not be long before her favorite child came. Sure enough, a few short moments later, there he was, at the doorway to her room.  
  
Aphrodite put on her best pout and ran over to him, sniffing a few times, as if she was on the verge of tears.  
  
To be frank, Eros hated his mother's melodramatic nature, but to stay on her favorite side, he acted concerned.  
  
"What is it, Mama?"  
  
"Darling, I need you to do me a favor."  
  
"What kind of favor?"  
  
"Well, I know how much you adore your mother, dear, and I need to ask you to do one teeny-tiny thing for me."  
  
"What is it?" Eros was getting slightly on the impatient side now.  
  
Aphrodite's pout remained. "Darling, I don't know if you've heard yet, but there's this little girl down on earth that people are calling 'The New Aphrodite,' and, well, it's just ruined my day...and...and...I...just..."   
  
Eros rolled his eyes, muttering under his breath. Aphrodite didn't notice in the least. "Well, Mama, what do you want me to be about it?"  
  
Aphrodite's exposition instantly changed, and it was full of malice now. "I want you to go down there and bring those arrows of yours. Make her fall in love with the nastiest, dirtiest, crudest, and most despicable man that lives on the earth. She has messed with me enough! This will teach her!"  
  
Eros thought that this was a little too harsh, but it was definitely his mother. "All right, Mama. I'll go right now."  
  
"Oh, thank you, darling. Don't take too long, though! Don't forget it all! Do you need me to make you a list or something? I could always-"  
  
"I'm fine, Mama! Goodbye!"  
  
He leaned down and kissed his mother, then left. Aphrodite went back to the window. Gazing at her enemy's sleeping form, she smiled and laughed at her cleverness in solving this problem.  
  
* * * * * * *   
  
Eros flew down to Carrie's backyard, silent and invisible in the darkness. He hated how his mother took everything to the extreme, but he doubted that she would change anytime soon.  
  
All he had to do was find this girl, and make her fall in love with the man he had found earlier. He felt sorry for her, for anyone who would have to marry the man he had found, but he was more worried about his mother, so obedience even from an avowed rebel like him seemed to be the best choice.  
  
He ran a hand through his golden hair, taking his time with the job. That was what he always called it. The job. Wreaking havoc in people's lives and marriages was what he did. It was what he was here for. His mother was there for them to be able to make up.   
  
It had always been like that, since the beginning of time, when they had first appeared. The gods and goddesses. They had been worshipped by the Greeks a few thousand years back, but now their worshippers were few and far between. In truth, save for literature and history classes, they had been thrown into oblivion. And no one believed that they were in the least real.  
  
Eros snapped back to the task on hand. He hadn't planned on taking even this long with it. He looked around from the shadows of an overhanging tree in the garden. In his now-usual human form, he was dressed like the average twenty-something guy, easily able to blend into society and then turn some poor soul's love life upside down.  
  
He continued to wander through the backyard, full of various plants and flowers, as well as statues, fountains, and other decorations. The huge house loomed in front of him.   
  
Eros knew where her room was located, and began to make his way there when he heard a sound to his left.  
  
He instantly froze, praying that no one saw him. After many moments of silence, he slowly turned that way, expecting a dog or squirrel. To his shock, it was not. It was a person, asleep in a hammock.  
  
Her face was away from him, but he could tell from her stillness and position that she was asleep. 'She must have rolled over in her sleep.'  
  
Eros walked over to her, realizing that this was Carrie, the girl his mother envied like mad, which was very evident under her anger and frustration. Yes, his mother was green with envy for this girl--'wonder why. She doesn't appear to be that pretty and all. It's probably just Mama and her worries. She's just like that. But still, why would anyone get so upset about'--  
  
At that moment, Carrie turned again, restless in her sleep. A strand of her light brown, almost a cinnamon color, hair was twisted casually around her right index finger. Clearly oblivious to her present situation, the face that she turned towards the god was content, rested, and happy. Eros felt his hand shake.  
  
'What's wrong with me? I've always been calm before? What's different this time? No matter. The sooner the job's done, the sooner I can go home.'  
  
Eros pulled an arrow from his backpack, which had long since replaced his old quiver, and bended over Carrie's sleeping form. He held her arm steady, with uneven breath, and brought the arrow closer and closer to her flesh. It seemed like an eternity before the arrow touched her. When it did, she winced in pain. Opening her eyes, she blinked and sat up, looking for someone.   
  
At the sight of her blue eyes, full of fear and panic, yet her still beautiful face, the arrow trembled in Eros' hand. He shook violently enough that he dropped the arrow on his outstretched arm, still holding the side of the hammock, where it cut him as well. Carrie didn't notice Eros, but nervously slid back down into the hammock and fell asleep soon after.  
  
Frozen in shock and fear, Eros reached over her sleeping form once again and kissed her forehead, then her lips. Had he just imagined it, or did she kiss him back?  
  
Nevertheless, he flew away, but not to the old, ugly man. He had planned on going to him and making sure that he was in love with Carrie, if he wasn't already. But his plans had changed. That man was out of a wife. And Eros had some plotting of himself to do. 


End file.
